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RedEaredSlider writes "Don't expect Google to remove apps that help users avoid DUI checkpoints — the company says it is leaving the controversial apps on its Android Marketplace. A source said the company only removes apps that violate its Android content policies and the apps in question do not appear to violate these policies." We'll see if Apple caves to pressure to remove them.

I wonder if they ever consider that this may actually be persuading people to not drink & drive. They check their phone, see that there are some drunk driver stake-outs, and they take a cab home instead. I'm sure it doesn't happen in all cases, but if it helps in a few, that's a good thing.

In Norway, this is allowed for that exact reason. These services are mostly targeted at speeding checkpoints but also works for DUI checkpoints (they are usually the same) There was a lot of fuzz from the police in the beginning but research showed otherwise. They discovered that people actually drive slower if they know about the checkpoints.

They discovered that people actually drive slower if they know about the checkpoints.

Not sure how it is in Norway, but flashing someone with your headlights twice is a way to signal oncoming traffic that there's a cop lying in wait down the road. I try to do it all the time, because I don't want to see anyone get a speeding ticket, but only after I'm out of eyeshot of the police.

In most countries flashing your lights is a signal to oncoming motorists that they are approaching a hazard. It almost doesn't matter to me whether that hazard is a fallen utility pole or a bored traffic cop, I would want to have some signal it's coming.

These days...pretty much ALL traffic enforcement is more towards revenue generation than safety. I'd not be surprised if they start treating DWI like the stoplight/speed cameras..where they actually print on the ticket "this is not a moving violation and will not go on your record"...??

Seriously, I say lets take all the fines for traffic violations, and rather than give them to the police or govt....let's pool it and redistribute it BACK to the citizens at EOY that haven't committed any infractions, as a type of reward.

I'd love to see how much enthusiasm and vigor law enforcement would continue to be for these type of stake outs, speed traps and checkpoints then when they didn't get any money out of it.

Frankly, I'd rather give bounties and rewards for preventing hard crimes like murder....I'm much more worried about that than some traffic infractions.

Don't get me wrong, if you're driving poorly and too inebriated to operate a vehicle safely, get them off the road, but other than that...go out and hunt REAL criminals.

Seriously, I say lets take all the fines for traffic violations, and rather than give them to the police or govt....let's pool it and redistribute it BACK to the citizens at EOY that haven't committed any infractions, as a type of reward.

Why stop with traffic violations? The profit motive is just as corrupting for other crimes. ALL fines should be paid back out to the public, or simply destroyed increasing the value of our dollars.

I agree. I can't believe how every time a city/state/county has a budget deficit, fines suddenly go up. Huh? If the fines are about making people safe, why didn't you up them before? If you are raising them only to make more money, then clearly the fine no longer fits the crime.

This is great that Google is not censoring applications just because some stupid person could theoretically use it to get away with doing something stupid. This is why I do not own any Apple products. Freedom! It's nice that Google doesn't penalize the responsible people for the actions of idiots.

To all you Apple users, no drunk person will think to avoid crashing into you just because you have a white apple on your back window. If they are drunk they will be making stupid decisions regardless of whether

This article [msn.com] lends credence to the idea. Don't have a ready citation for the idea that drunk driving is something government needs, though.

If you're too lazy to click, Dallas, TX decided that the cameras at red lights were doing too good a job of reducing infractions and were cutting into their funding, so they got rid of them. The cops would have you believe that the purpose of the cameras was to increase safety, but their behavior clearly shows that the primary motive was cash.

It could be argued that this is the result of "running government like a business".

The lesson: If everyone stopped breaking the law, cops might have to do an honest day's work.:D

I've worked with a bunch of Cops. Almost all of them have been stand up guys, and good people. But like any other organization of (mostly) well meaning people, bureaucracies get in the way.

Mistakes happen, and sometimes the interests of the public aren't fully served. But for the most part anyone that goes into a service career like law enforcement usually has the best interests of the public at heart.

The problem with good cops, is that even a completely honest cop is charged with enforcing unjust laws. Someone who is truly a good person will not allow themselves to be an agent of injustice. As a result, there is no such thing as a good cop.

Exactly. Red-light cameras were pushed HARD in Florida by claiming they'd reduce red-light running, but 99.7% of the actual tickets end up getting issued for rolling right turns, or coming to a complete stop with the front vertical plane of the car not 100% behind the white line painted SO FAR BACK from the intersection,drivers on wet roads end up in a position where they literally have about 200 milliseconds to figure out whether they have enough room to come to a complete stop behind the white line painted about a hundred feet back from the actual intersection without hydroplaning and spinning out of control, or trying to make it completely across the intersection to another point ridiculously far beyond the actual intersection.

The fact that there are no mandatory state-dictated standards for yellow-light timing and/or white-stripe placement makes the whole thing an even bigger farce. Actually, that's not quite right... there ARE standards for timing and geometry, but they only apply to state-road intersections... intersections that never have red-light cameras anyway because FDOT knows they're bullshit and doesn't even want to waste its time screwing with them. It's cash-starved municipalities that go crazy putting them everywhere, casting their nets as far and aggressively as they can with the tightest timings and most widely-spaced stripes the consultants leasing them the cameras and issuing the tickets tell them they can get away with. In fact, FDOT won't even allow red-light cameras on state property.

How bad is it in Florida? In many cases, the red-light cameras are now costing the municipalities money, because any ticket issued by them can be trivially challenged on technical merit and get thrown out of court with basically 100% success, often without even requiring an attorney. At least one judge (in Broward, I think) cleared his entire docket and dismissed every outstanding ticket issued by a municipality over the prior ~year because LITERALLY 100% were getting successfully thrown out, and the City's legal argument for pursuing them can be loosely summarized as "our contract with the camera company requires us to cooperate, and we really need the money." I don't remember the exact argument, but it was something along those lines, and was so egregiously bad, the judge threatened to hold the City's attorney and its elected officials in contempt of court if it kept wasting his time with tickets that couldn't stand up to even the most trivial legal challenge.

The fact is, actual honest-to-god "the light is red, and I'm going to intentionally proceed through the intersection anyway" offenses are almost *unheard* of in the US. At the end of the day, it's probably the #1 greatest cultural taboo in America. Americans will sit at a red light at 3am on a deserted 6-lane road for 5 minutes. We'll spend 10 minutes backing up and moving forward in a roomba-like forward-facing figure-8 pattern shifting across 2 or 3 lanes trying to trigger broken sensors, and do a U-turn over a curb and raised median if we believe that the light really, truly, is never going to turn green... but actually proceeding forward through a red light? Never.

Yeah, that's why all our police departments and the State DA protested the DoT's "Drink. Drive. Go to Jail." ad campaign, as it might reduce the amount of drinking and driving arrests they are able to make.

I meant, that's why the court house, with assistance by the local PD, hosts MADD meetings within the building to "scare people sober" with horrific stories of drunk driving accidents.

If they were really worried about it...they'd just ban the sale of alcohol in establishments like bars and restaurants,

Yes, and while standing shoulder to shoulder with drunk drivers and Google, we are also standing shoulder to shoulder with our local news papers, radio stations, municipalities, and police departments, seeing as how they are REQUIRED BY LAW to advertise the location of these check points.

It is unconstitutional to search or sieze an individual or their car with out reasonable cause. Being on the road after bar time is not reasonable cause. The only way that these check points have been able to pass constitutional muster is by advertising their existance (including the when and where) to act as a deterrant.

I loathe drunk drivers. I lost a girl friend and another close friend to drunk drivers. I left a company after the finding out that the CEO had been arrested for his 4th DUI. I'd love to see much harsher penalties for multiple offence drunk drivers. But the posting of these check points is a matter of constitutional law. If the senate were to forbid media industries from distributing this information, the check points would fail to pass the constitutional measure and would have to stop.

Having good friends die at the hands of drunk drivers, and being a Libertarian, I can assure you I do not stand "shoulder to shoulder" with drunk drivers. I can also assure you, that I don't care that there is an App that gives details to DUI check points. The biggest reason? Drunks are stupid. They may be brilliant people when sober, but when drunk they are... as dumb as a stump they just tripped over.

The only people who don't want this app out there are as stupid as the drunks they are trying to catch. I

In my area, I actually work for the local county government (which is tied to and is the main source of funds for the county sheriff's office). You see that for the sheriff's deputies, they are usually much more lenient on things like traffic violations, because in reality the bulk of their funding is coming from property taxes and state funds - NOT traffic violations. As such, they are usually only out to enforce things that they truly believe are safety violations. When I was 17-18 in high school, if a county sheriff's deputy caught us drinking down an old dirt road, they generally didn't care - as long as we weren't throwing trash everywhere, and were in an area where there was unlikely to be any actual traffic (middle of the woods at midnight nobody else is typically on the roads), then they'd usually just let us go with a "Be careful, and stay out of trouble.".

Now, shift to town police instead. The smaller the town (and hence the less state funding they receive), the worse the officers are. They will ticket you for the smallest infraction. One small town around here has literally written tickets for as little as *3* mph over the speed limit. A news story was recently done on that down related to their draconian enforcement and it was exposed that 66% of their budget comes from the fines related to traffic violations. That "town" literally is an intersection with a mayor, judge, and 1-2 police officers (and a population of less than 100 people).

As such I wouldn't say that ALL law enforcement officers are out to be dicks, but realistically, when you tie their paycheck to the numbers of tickets they write, you're going to get draconian enforcement.

Apple is practically obligated to pull the app, given the fact they're willing to act as the morality police for their users, though it might take them awhile because they like to pretend they 'think different'. RIM is a lily-livered chicken with no willingness to take any kind of stand for fear of offending anybody. It's also not a surprise they pulled the app. And Google is standing by their principles, and won't pull the app unless its actually illegal.

The world is acting according to my expectations in this regard. And once again, its Google I have the most respect for.

Yes but I would argue that now Apple is almost obligated to NOT pull the app because their fight with Google trumps all. Because when they do pull it you know Google will use that as an edge when marketing. We will see though. I hope this is the case.

Google could pull the App, but let's be honest, even if they did, the actual barrier to installing it is practically non-existent. I'm sure a significant number of people using such an app are googling it anyways, this just makes it somewhat more convenient than having to sideload.

In other words, I don't think it's worth the hit to Google's integrity to pull an app like this.

Totally agree. I'm amazed to hear people calling for the censorship / restraint of the free exchange of tools and information by people who want to make them available to people who want to use them, when they violate no law. Just because something is controversial does not mean it should be banned. (I would think that we in the US would understand that more than most)

How would you feel about an app that purported to help black people not being black? And how is this any different? Bigots and religious lunatics already have the right to say pretty much anything they like, no need to give them an additional platform for doing that!

I would support the right of a KKK or Nazi sympathist to say or publish whatever he likes before I support you in oppressing him. You are no better than the religious lunatics who indoctrinate their offspring. Enjoy your 'freedom,' serf.

Understanding isn't necessarily reflected in actions; but in this case I think flogging the censorship horse is a bit out of touch.

I think Apple bans apps based on brand positioning rather than morality or deference to authority. In short, they identify their products with creative, intelligent, well off people. They want people to envision their products fitting in at a well lit coffee shop with too many plants.They don't want people to think iphone==mini porn device, or imagine a "fondle slab" in a tr

And Google is standing by their principles, and won't pull the app unless its actually illegal.

I fully expect this app to soon be made illegal by legislators "thinking of the children" and "tough on crime", along with another round of cries of "Google is evil" and "Google's monopoly should be broken up" by harebrained analysts and commentators. .

It's considered entrapment if they don't. If you read your local paper, you'll see checkpoints published. Of course, law enforcement is constantly trying to push the limits. After our local PDs started ramping up DUI checkpoints, they started restricting information on locations, shortening the lead time for announcements, etc.

"Grow up"? It's hardly a sign of maturity to supinely acquiesce to whatever inconveniences that agents of the state choose to impose, even those that don't rise to the level of all out assault on one's freedom.

Citation necessary. That's not entrapment. Whether they tell the public ahead of time that there will be DUI checkpoints or not it's not entrapment. It might be a violation of portions of the constitution at the state or federal level, but it's definitely not entrapment.

Yes, check points need to be published in newpapers to allow police to side-step 4th amendment rights to unreasonable searches. If the info is made public, the rationale is you've been "notified", regardless if you've read it or not, and have waived your reasonable expectation of privacy in this regard.

Read here [wikipedia.org] and here [wikipedia.org] for why DUI checkpoints are legal. They do not have to publish anything anywhere.

"...by a 6-3 decision in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz (1990), the United States Supreme Court found properly conducted sobriety checkpoints to be constitutional. While acknowledging that such checkpoints infringed on a constitutional right, Chief Justice Rehnquist argued the state interest in reducing drunk driving outweighed this minor infringement."

Here in New Hampshire, there are specific prohibitions against [nhseacoastlawyers.com] using a sobriety checkpoint for trapping ANY violation other than drunk driving.

The legislature enacted RSA 265:1-a (2004), which provides:[...]Sobriety checkpoints can't be used as a backdoor method to find other types of criminal violations. They must be published in advance by at least one newspaper.

Go figure, the legislature - along with armies of lawyers and police officers, thought of your trick and specifically closed the loophole to prevent against that abuse.

Thats interesting. Can you back that up? Where would this info be published?

I don't think anything is in law, but the NHTSA has issued guidelines for checkpoints that should help keep them legal, and on of those guidelines is that the public be warned of locations ahead of time:

How they do that differs - sometimes it's a local paper, evening news, etc, however posting on a bulletin board at the local police station 15 minutes before setting up the checkpoint may also count as sufficient notice.

If you're rational enough to pull out an app and plot a route home that avoids all the checkpoints, you're probably sober enough to drive. The problem with drunk drivers is that they DON'T think straight.

I know how you feel, I hate getting stopped at these DUI checkpoints also but they do perform a useful purpose. As annoying as it is I think the fact that they are getting drunks off the road is important. It's incredible how many people get arrested for drinking and driving at these stops. Most people who get caught admit to drinking but think "they're fine." They don't believe the fact they've been guzzling alcohol at a bar for 3 or 4 hours has any effect on them.

Ahh, think of the children! Ahh, think of the drunk driving victims! It just goes on and on. Getting drunks off the road is important, let's stop everyone. Finding illegal aliens is important, let's require the police to check everyone's papers. We need to stop terrorism, let's irradiate everyone who tries to get on an airplane. Next up, stopping drug dealers -- let's grab people at random and search them. Anything, anything at all to prevent crime, even if it means giving up the most fundamental freedoms w

Without looking, what is the expiration date on your license plates? Or your drivers license, or safety inspection, or tax sticker, or insurance, or any of the multitude of other things you're required to keep in order? Have you checked all the lights on your car today? That's what they're really after.

Cops in my county will road block in the afternoon on a weekend. They are NOT looking for drunk drivers. They're collecting revenue.

Actually, most Checkpoints are useless. They snag very few drunk drivers compared to number of cops it takes to run the checkpoint and number of people they inconvenence. Only reason most departments run them at all is because they get money from fed.gov to do so and cops don't care since it's overtime for most of them. If we wanted to crack down on drunk driving, we would take these officers, team them up, put them in a car during prime drunk driving time and send them out to catch drunks. It would be win,

That's actually a myth, a person's reaction time starts to take a hit way before the person becomes unable to use an app like this. Unless of course it's poorly designed. Particularly for people who have developed a tolerance, they might look and speak fine, but the reaction time still isn't there to drive safely.

Sure that's the case for some drivers, but it's hardly the only ones. Somebody in that condition can at least stick to back streets and leave more room, they aren't necessarily that much more dange

a person's reaction time starts to take a hit way before the person becomes unable to use an app like this

Well, there's our answer! Design a reaction-time-testing game into teh app. If you fail, you'll never know, but the app will lie to you about checkpoint locations, trying to route you into the first one between "here" and your destination.

As well as impaired depth perception, night vision, flare recovery (the amount of time required for your eyes to adjust to a bright light source flashing across your field of vision, i.e. an oncoming car) judgement, and reasoning. These are measurably reduced before you are falling-down drunk as well; indeed, they start to become impaired before you even reach the legal threshold (around here) of.08 blood alcohol content.

If you're weaving in traffic, a cop pulls you over and writes you a ticket? He or she might give you a field sobriety test first, which, since you were sleepy not drunk, you'll probably pass as you are now fully awake. He or she can still ticket you for what he saw, with no new laws required.

Then chances are you're too drunk to use the apps. I can't imagine some drunk driver trying to use some Google Maps mashup on a phone to navigate around police roadblocks, let alone have the mental aforethought to consider using it. People don't drink and drive because they're evil-doers, they do it because they lack the sober rationale to realize they're not capable of driving in their current condition.

I would wager that quite a lot of people who drink-drive do it because they think of drink-driving in the same way that you do in this comment - that drink-driving is what happens when you are so drunk that you are unable to perform basic functions - and therefore don't consider what they are doing to be drink-driving. It only takes a small amount of alcohol for a person's reactions and judgement to be greatly reduced, with potentially fatal consequences if they then drive a car. They can therefore be unfit

I thought Android had an to easy to use interface. Actually a reaction/logic test prior to accessing the maps would be a good addition (though annoying) to the software, fail the test and you can't find out where the stops are. It would bolster the premise that the application serves the valid purpose of allowing sober drivers to avoid delays.

I'm with you here... How in the world is it reasonable to stop every last person passing by on the road? They might as well let cops randomly search blocks of houses for possession of contraband or tax evasion. I say it's unreasonable, and I appreciate the app. Statistical probability says that someone in this town isn't paying their fair share, and we're going to search every last home until we find out who's cheating the system!

It is common knowledge where I live that certain municipalities stop drivers at checkpoints, and then will not release them until they have found some reason to give them a ticket. They aren't DUI checkpoints. They are the modern version of "highwaymen". A few coins to keep the kings peace....

It is common knowledge where I live that certain municipalities stop drivers at checkpoints, and then will not release them until they have found some reason to give them a ticket.

Exactly. Calling them DUI checkpoints pulls the right emotional strings to keep most people from being enraged at the prospect of getting stopped en masse without cause. The reality is that these are not DUI checkpoints but checkpoints in a more general and unsavory sense. Else, they would wave you through if you don't wreak of alcohol and aren't obviously under the influence. Instead, they write dozens or hundreds of tickets for things like seatbelt violations, lack of insurance, expired licenses, expired

Everyone keeps referring to these apps as "Checkpoint Evasion" apps, implying their primary purpose is to help drunks dodge DUI checks. Both PhantomAlert and Trapster are primarily built to identify SPEED TRAPS, not DUI checkpoints. They just happen to allow users to tag checkpoints as well. I've been a Trapster user pretty much since it came out and have never seen a checkpoint listed. The "Buzzed" app seems to be focused on DUI checks and thus could be much more questionable, but again at least the ot

The app just collects publicly posted information about DUI checkpoints. It could be easily replicated in a for pay website which uses the browser API to grab GPS coordinates and fetch the relevant information. What happens then, are we going to come up with a mobile application website list?

This application just allows users to enforce their constitutional rights.

Americans once had a right under the constitution to protection from illegal search and seizure. Now even someone who is driving in total compliance with the law is subject to being interrogated by the police and having their blood forcibly taken from them.

Personally, I'd rather not have the police stick me with a needle in violation of my constitutional rights.

This app will be very useful until unconstitutional police checkpoints can be banned.

Americans once had a right under the constitution to protection from illegal search and seizure. Now even someone who is driving in total compliance with the law is subject to being interrogated by the police and having their blood forcibly taken from them.

Since you said "Americans", with the implication that it applies to people in the US, I can feel safe in saying: bullshit.

Point 1: Sobriety checkpoints are not interrogations.

Point 2: Stops other than checkpoints require probable cause, which means you were most likely NOT driving "in total compliance" with the law. Even a broken taillight takes you out of the "total compliance" status, or wandering over the fog line.

Point 3: You NEVER have blood taken forcibly. You have the right to refuse to take a b

So what if you smell like beer. That's not illegal and it's not probable cause for a search.

And nobody gets waved through even if you smell like roses. They still check your license, registration, insurance, and whatever else your state requires. They'll also look around inside your car with a flashlight. Any bulbs out? Even that little one over the license plate that you didn't even know was there? That'll be a ticket.

If you're sober as a priest it's still a search. It is not optional and it is

What does how many lines there are have to do with anything? Answer: nothing. You say hi to the cop, he sees you are sober and waves you through.

Obviously, you don't live in my town. You have to show license, registration and insurance, explain who is in your car and where you came from and are heading to, and if they don't like your passengers, they have to show their licenses as well. (Papers, please!) In the meantime, they are circling your car with flashlights looking inside and blinding your passengers. This is after you've spent 15 minutes in a line of cars that you can't get around while they interrogate everybody. Oh, and you might get

A real solution to the drunk-driving problem is autonomous cars. DUI checkpoints are simply a profit generator for the police and, IMO, have very little consequence on the amount of accidents.

Autonomous cars seem excessive, when there are safe, already available alternatives, like taxi service. Furthermore, in some cities there are FREE taxi service options such as this one [austinsoberride.com] for major occasions when folks are likely to be out partying.

So the possibility that a completely sober driver might want this information in order to avoid a pointless traffic stop, just doesn't cross your mind? I drive sober, period. I'd love this app. I'm not fucking obliged to drive through checkpoints if I can avoid it.

That might be the case, if it weren't for the fact that the time and location of DUI checkpoints generally have to be published ahead of time. So they're simply redistributing already-public knowledge.

That's kind of like saying the 4th and 5th Amendments are "aiding and abetting a person to break the law".

You're free to speak and to associate. That's what this app does. You're free not to incriminate yourself. That's what this app does. This is true whether you're committing a crime or not.

It's the responsibility of the police to observe you doing it, not the privilege of the police to make you prove it. And if it weren't for the ridiculous "driving is a privilege not a right" rulings, police checkpoints of any kind would be entirely unconstitutional stops, as they are based on no reasonable suspicion.

I do not jest when I ask this, because it is NOT illegal to avoid contact with the police. Driving is not a right, but rather a privilege. However, you DO have the right to travel from one place to another free of undue and unwarranted harassment. Because of the way that DUI checkpoints are conducted, they absolutely qualify as undue and unwarranted harassment. You personally may not mind being the presumption of guilt that hovers over you at a DUI checkpoint, but most reasonable people resent the mindset of police who are looking for any excuse to slap you with a ticket--or worse. I consider the ability to avoid unnecessary interaction with an agency that does not have my best interests in mind to be a legitimate use. If you don't, then you really need to get a clue.

Furthermore, the locations of DUI checkpoints are published beforehand. Would you also take newspapers to task for publishing this information? You could certainly use it to get plastered and then avoid the cops. The checkpoint locations are intended to be public knowledge, and trying to restrict that knowledge is not too good an idea.

Yes, it is illegal to drive when drunk. Here's the thing, though--as soon as you get behind the wheel of a car you can't control (for nearly any reason) and start driving it, you've already broken the law. Once you're truly drunk, you don't have the mental capacity to take a route home based on where the police aren't. If you can think ahead and plan out your trip home based on a DUI checkpoint alert program and actually stick to it, then you probably aren't the danger to the driving public that MADD and the police say you are.

I haven't even gone into the inaccuracy of breathalyzer readings, nor the fact that field tests are designed to be failed. I could, but I trust that I've made my point.

From what I've seen the past few years, the federal government seems to be able to do what it wants, constitutionality be damned. I'm sure Apple and Blackberry find it easier to comply than to try and fight city hall (as the saying goes). Furthermore, if they throw them a bone, less likely it is to see Washington attempt to come in and meddle in their businesses. You make certain congress critters mad at you and they'll go on an almost holy crusade if they think it will buy them points for the next elect